Look Up

She told me about the story from the Bhagavad Gita where Krishna asked Arjuna and Duryodhana to choose between the army and him. Duryodhana chose his army and Arjuna chose Krishna. (Read the full story here).

She wrote:

“For the longest time, I had always wondered what I would’ve done… I was listening to the kirtan when I had a vision that I was standing by Krishna’s feet; I could only see the feet clearly, with the rest of Him kind of out of focus – I knew without a doubt I would have picked him… ”

Her story ended there, but my thoughts continued: what would Krishna say to her?

He would say “Look up”.

Always look up at your Ishta with surrender… why keep your focus narrow at his feet, he is all-loving and always happy when we look up at him in surrender; then we let ourselves know the joy that opening in surrender brings.

The day I started sketching this painting, that night these words came to me…

Come create with me…

Why do things not flow?

I try so hard to center again…

So much energy…

So much being pulled to the surface….

I want to go back into my cocoon…
Can I?

Then there is a question…

“Does the energy speak to you? Have you inquired about what it is doing there?

Why did I not think of this?

I ask….

Why are you here?

Why are you tearing me apart on the inside?

Why can I not move back to stillness?

“I am here to create” it says…

“why do you doubt me?”

“why don’t you just flow with me where I take you?”

“you tear apart within because you try to move in the opposite direction from where I take you…”

“why do you question?”

“have I ever let you down?”

“trust me… and come create with me”

~ Shweta (Feb 23rd 2012)

Another experience I had with this painting:As I sketched this painting for the first time, it took me a while to get the face, and I let it go… and a face emerged, nothing like I had imagined it to be. Then I started painting it, I did not like how it turned out so I decided to change it… whited it out and redid the face and at the end of it, it looked exactly the same as the first time I painted it… so made another attempt… guess what? It looked the exact same as the first one. So either I am terrible at painting, or Krishna wishes to look like he does in that painting and is showing me to move out of my mind and accept it… he wants that face, I have to let him have it.

After this, the entire painting really flowed, there was very little doing and more allowing Krishna to create.

Like this:

I refer to my paintings as creations from stillness. I have found the best thing I can do as an artist is to get out of the way and let life paint what it wants to paint. I get inspiration about what each painting will be, and then, bit by bit, the general sense of it fills in, but that all comes from stillness, too.